


Oliver

by ImaginAria



Category: Hall Pa$$, Thornville High
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4973530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaginAria/pseuds/ImaginAria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two parallel universes cross over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oliver

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I just wanted to write this and it doesn't fit into any actual cannon plot that I know of. Kudos if you know what part of the blogs I based it on though.

You're sitting in the middle of your old race car bed in your brand new room. You just finished moving to this dump of a town in the middle of nowhere, far away from anything and tomorrow you start school and it's going to suck. Hell, the only clothes in your closet were picked out by your mother and they're all pink—your favorite color but a junior guy wearing pink the first day of school on top of your stupid glasses is a recipe for disaster.  
You groan and flop facedown onto your bed, wishing that you'd never had to leave home, that your dad and brothers and mom hadn't... and just as you're heading down that dark ally you swear you hear a knock at your window. At your window three stories off the ground.  
You shoot up, staring at the dark pane of glass. For a moment, all is quiet—they've even stopped shouting downstairs—and you think you just imagined it, but then there's movement outside. And yes, it's definitely someone knocking. Which is unbelievable because sure, you've had fantasies about sappy teenage romances like you read about in that Shakespeare play you had to do for English last year, but, again, you just moved here AND nobody's every cared enough about you to even visit during the day, much less sneak in at night. And then your brain points out that maybe this is a robbery or kidnapping attempt and tells you to run. But there's nobody you want to see downstairs and there's someone up here, so you grab your golf club and you go over to the window, unlock it, and pull it open a crack.  
A voice from outside grumbles, “About time dickquaffer,” and despite having the golf club you jump back as a pale hand wearing a red fingerless glove shoves your window open all the way and a boy appears, swinging his legs over the sill. He's tall, with shaggy black hair gelled up in kind of a fauxhawk, and is wearing clothes you'd call punk His face reveals that he can't be too much older than you, but then you are firmly distracted by the fact that his eyes are yellow. Like, almost glowing golden yellow and when they focus on you, you can't make yourself move.  
“I told you I'd be coming over tonight, Swag,” he says, running a hand through his hair as he drops to the carpet, “Way to pay attention.”  
“What?” is all you can manage to get out.  
He rolls his eyes, and you can't help but follow them with your own, “You didn't leave the window open. Geez, Swag, you are such a dork.” He gives you a smile , but it fades as he takes in your stance, wide-eyed, glasses askew, clutching the golf club. “Swag...are you okay?”  
He takes a step towards you and you finally manage to say, “I'm not Swag!” Well not so much say as shout.  
He stops, midstep, and stares at you.  
“I...I have no idea who you're talking about. M..my name is Oliver.” You'd just started gaining confidence, but the look on his face—one of utter dejection, makes your voice quiet again, “I just moved here three days ago. I'm not ...Swag.”  
“Oh,” is all he says, and you swear you can see his heart breaking in his face, even though his expression never changes. You'd always been good at reading people.  
He abruptly turns and goes back to the window, and you just stand there and watch him go. But with one leg out the window, he pauses. “If you're not Swag,” he asks, turning those yellow eyes on you again, “Then why did you open the window.”  
You stand there for a second and your mouth opens and closes like a goldfish until you mutter, “I dunno.”  
“Right,” he says, and doesn't move. Maybe he's good at reading people too or maybe it's just so painfully obvious. You feel like it's the second one.  
Finally, you just go and sit on the edge of your bed and stare at your feet, “I was lonely I guess.”  
“So you decided to let in some guy knocking on your window.”  
You shrug, “Seemed like a better idea than anything else.”  
“Most people would call the police. Or at least their parents.”  
You scoff, “Yeah, like I'd want to have anything to do with them.” There's silence for a moment and then you feel him sit on the bed about a foot and a half away from you and you look up to find his eyes gazing at you. And you're not sure why, but you fee like this is somebody you could and should trust. Which was weird, given you'd just met and the fact that you never talk to anybody about anything personal.  
“It's, ...complicated,” you mutter, looking down again,.  
“You should hear mine,” he says and you look back at him. He's smiling, but there's no mirth.  
“Yeah?”  
He nods, “My dad killed himself, and my mom never really got over it,” he says, so matter-of factly that you know he's long-since come to terms with it.  
You aren't sure what to say until you finally come up with, “Wow, that make my problems seem...insignificant.”  
“If they're making you unlock your window to strangers in the middle of the night, I doubt it.”  
There's silence again, and then you sigh, “They were cheating on each other. Both of them.”  
He blinks and is about to say something but you cut in.  
“Wait. There's more. See, the way they figured it out was my brothers went to jail. For possession and selling and doing drugs. Hell I don't even know what it was! But they were in jail that night and it turns out my my dad was on a business trip and when my Mom called to tell him, she got a girl. And when she confronted him, he said that he knew about her sleeping around and they both blamed each other for my brothers being in jail and for everything else that could possibly be wrong with their lives...including their other little gay f-ckup of a son...and I sat up on the stairs and heard all of it. When the news about everything got around because my brothers are idiotic a—holes, my parents decided a change of scenery would be nice. Hell it didn't f—king matter to me! It's not like I had any friends or any reason to stay anywhere!”  
You hadn't realized that you'd started crying but there are tears rolling down your cheeks. You move to wipe them away, but he beats you to it, carefully putting your glasses on top of your head and running a calloused thumb under your eye. His hands are warm and smell like nicotine and metal dust and something else you can't figure out. You're surprised at his touch and almost pull away, but before you can he gently but firmly takes your chin and turns your to face him. Once you meet his eyes, you freeze because they burn with a fierce intensity.  
“You're alone.” You nod.  
He tilts his head a little, thinking for a moment before he says, “Why don't you have any friends?”  
The question had been asked to you many times, usually with jeers and smirks behind it as you walked quickly by, but he's not asking it of you—he's not implying it's your fault. He's asking the world. So all you can do is shrug and say, “I was the rich wimpy nerdy kid who wore a lot of pink and wasn't..interested in talking about girls and people don't like it when you're different.” And then, dammit you are crying for real and you can't stop.  
He wraps his arm around your shoulders and pulls you close and you can't make yourself push him away because he's warm and solid and muttering soft comforts you're too out of it to understand. So the two of you sit there, unmoving, until you've stopped sobbing and are just leaning against his shoulder hiccuping quietly every now and then.  
Eventually, he takes your shoulder and pushes you away just enough that he can see your face. You know you must look awful with your cheeks tear-stained and your eyes red and puffy, but there's no judgment in his face.  
“So...” he muses, gently taking your chin in his hand, “If you never had any friends I suppose no one has ever kissed you before?”  
“N...no?” you say, confused, but then he leans forward and gently press his lips to yours.  
You hadn't been paying attention before, but he has snakebite lip rings and you can feel the cool metal of them on your lower lip, and now you figure out what else he smells like and its high mountains. He doesn't push you and pulls away just a couple seconds later, smiling.  
“Well now someone has.”  
You nod dumbly because you're officially exhausted and have no idea what's going on.  
“My name's One, by the way,” he says as he gets up.  
“One?”  
He shrugs, “It's what my friends call me. My real name's Gabriel Kell, but almost nobody uses that name except my mom and substitute teachers.”  
“Oh.”  
He offers you a hand, which you take, and pulls you over to the still-open window, “You should read my blog.”  
You're beginning to find your voice again, and say, “You have a blog?”  
He snorts, “Yeah. Just Google me, you'll find it. Trust me it's totally great. Or not.” He shrugs, and you smile a little.  
He stops by the window and turns to you, “Well, it was very nice to meet you Oliver.” And he pulls you into a hug and you bury your head in his chest and wish that he wasn't going to disappear and that you had more confidence that this wasn't just another dream.  
When he steps back, he sifts through his pockets, pulls out a piece of paper and a pen, proceeds to scribble something and then hands the paper to you.  
It's a phone number, and he says, “Text me” before swinging a leg over the window sill.  
“One?”  
He pauses, looking back at you, eyes almost seeming to glow in the dim light from your room.  
“Why?” You don't really know what “why” you are referring to; why he's here at all, why he didn't leave as soon as he realized who you were(n't), why he kissed you, why he gave you his number, why he seems to care so damn much about somebody he's never met.  
He shrugs, “First of all, because you needed it. And secondly, because you remind me of someone who was always there for me.”  
And then he's gone. You lean out of the window after him, but it's pitch dark now and you can't see anything, so you close your window—close but not lock—and go to bed.

The next morning you get out your phone and cautiously enter the number with a text that says, “Hey One. This is Oliver.”  
Within 30 seconds, you get a response, “Oliver do you have any idea what time it is?” And you smile.  
Going to school is much less frightening now—you try and channel One's swagger even wearing your pink sweater vest and by the end of the day nobody has instantly bullied you like what used to happen at your old school.  
Over the next week you spend all of your free time texting One or reading his blog (which is in fact the top result for his name when you search it). He's incredibly sarcastic and has a wicked sense of humor, but, as he said, he's been through some rough times. You read about Swag—and are majorly weirded out by just how similar he is to you except with 110% more attitude. And you eventually realize what's going on. Apparently, various people have traveled between universes before and this is a parallel universe to the one that One and Swag are from. Which explains why he wasn't as freaked out by you as you were by him.

Exactly 1 week after One first appeared in your window you text him and it bounces. You try calling and get a recorded message telling you that number is no longer in service. You Google search his name, and what comes up first isn't his blog. It's a local newspaper article dated about a year ago. About a car crash.

The Thornville Cemetery is small and quiet, kind of off in the woods. You wander around for awhile before you find what you're looking for—three graves next to each other, all pretty new. The first two belong to Jericho Chavez and Johnny McKenzie who you remember vaguely being the real names of two of the other boys from One's blog. But you don't really believe the whole thing until you get to the last one. “Gabriel Kell.”  
And it hits you that he's gone for good and you just sort of sit back on the grass and stare for a moment. You don't notice the footsteps behind you until a sharp voice asks, “What are you doing here?”  
You spin around so fast that you almost fall over and find another boy behind you. You notice a lot of things about him all at once. He's wearing a hoodie, but he's so thin that he looks like he's swimming in it. His hood is up, but there's enough light to see a shock of black hair and features hinting at Asian heritage which might once have been described as “fine.” But now his face is marred by a patchwork of scars, the most prominent of which goes from under his left eye straight down to his jaw, and you remember that there was a fourth person in the accident.  
He also looks insanely familiar and it only takes a second before it clicks and you recognize him as Aarron Bang, known to One as Bitter. He also sits two rows behind you in History and you're pretty sure he's in a few more of your classes too.  
“I was a friend of On...of Gabriel's,” you say, picking yourself up.  
He crosses his arms and scowls, “You don't look like someone Gabe would hang out with.”  
“Pink is awesome,” you reply instantly and then, “From a long time ago. I just moved here. You're...Aarron, right?”  
He relaxes some at his name, but still looks at you suspiciously.  
You hold out a hand, “I'm...” you aren't sure how to introduce yourself anymore. But you're not really Swag, are you? You're “Oliver. Nice to meet you.”  
He slowly shakes your hand back: he's wearing fingerless gloves that remind you a lot of One's except these ones are gray.  
“Do you come here often?” you ask.  
He shifts his eyes to the graves, “Yeah. Didn't really have a lot of friends except these guys. Most of the school are assholes.”  
You grin at his last statement, “Well, I am an asshole too, but I'm an asshole who knew Gabe, so that counts for something, right?”  
He sort of nods.  
“Hey, I just got my massive double screen gaming system set up. You any good at Smash Bros?”  
He actually nods.  
“Awesome. I need someone to play. I promise I'll go easy on you, even though I'm the best at Smash Bros.”  
“O...kay.”  
He follows you to your house where he proceeds to destroy you in 5 consecutive games of Smash before you figure out his strategy enough to win (mostly by sheer luck). When he's leaving he gives you a genuine smile, the first of many that only you will see.  
And you're really glad you unlocked your window.


End file.
